“No Expert In Election Law Either”: Florida Governor Rick Scott Is Also ‘Not A Scientist’
Florida governor Rick Scott (R) ripped a page from Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) science-denying playbook on Tuesday, when he dodged a question on climate change by insisting “I’m not a scientist.”
As Marc Caputo reports in The Miami Herald, the latest example of Scott’s climate-change trutherism came during a question-and-answer session in Miami:
Q: Do you believe man-made climate change is significantly affecting the weather, the climate?
Scott: “Well, I’m not a scientist. But let’s talk about what we’ve done. Through our Division of Emergency Management — the last few years, three years – we put about, I think, $120 million to deal with flooding around our coast. We also put a lot of money into our natural treasures, the Everglades, trying to make sure all the water flows south. So we’re dealing with all the issues we can. But I’m not a scientist.”
Q: In 2011 or 2010, you were much more doubtful about climate change. Now you’re sounding less doubtful about man-made climate change because now you’re not saying ‘Look, I doubt the science.’ Now you’re saying: ‘I’m not a scientist.’ Am I right in guessing that?
Scott: “Well, I’m not a scientist. But I can tell you what we’ve accomplished. We put a lot of effort into making sure that we take care of our natural treasures – the Everglades, making sure water flows south, any flooding around our coast. So we’re doing the right thing.”
Question (asked by citizen-activist): So do you believe in the man-made influence on climate change?
Scott: “Nice seeing you guys.”
The governor’s dodge is a rather weak case for refusing to fully confront Florida’s looming environmental crisis. After all, Scott is also not an expert in election law, but that didn’t stop him from illegally attempting to purge Florida’s voter rolls.
If Scott is interested in the opinion of actual scientists on the matter, however, they have been very clear that the climate is warming, likely due to human activities.
Scott’s response is nearly a carbon copy of the one offered by Senator Rubio in 2012, when he infamously responded to a question on the age of the Earth by telling GQ reporter Michael Hainey “I’m not a scientist, man.” Rubio has since devolved on the issue, going from refusing to engage with science to flatly denying it.
Scott’s has moved in the opposite direction. Although he now refuses to discuss science, during his first gubernatorial campaign in 2010 Scott proudly stated that he does not believe in climate change.
The governor’s attempt to sidestep questions on the topic will likely resurface during his re-election campaign. Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer has named Scott as one of the top targets of his $100 million campaign to boot climate-change truthers from office in November, and Scott’s awkward answer seems tailor-made for an attack ad.
By: Henry Decker, The National Memo, May 28, 2014
“Marco Rubio Disqualifies Himself”: ‘Hey Man’, There’s A Difference Between Climate Science And Meteorology
If American presidents need to prove a basic ability to accept facts, then Senator Marco Rubio of Florida—who’s publicly mulling a run — just disqualified himself from competition.
In an interview with ABC on Sunday, days after the release of an alarming White House report on the present and future effects of climate change on the United States, Mr. Rubio said:
“I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it.”
There’s something almost cute about the last part of that sentence — a hedge he can bring out in a general election if he’s accused of willful stupidity. I’m not a climate-change denier, he might say, I just don’t think scientists are giving us an accurate picture.
Does Mr. Rubio think scientists are lying? Or that they don’t know what they’re talking about? Either way, what leads him to believe that the “portrait” of climate change offered by scientists is inaccurate?
Previously, Mr. Rubio told a GQ reporter “I’m not a scientist, man”—when asked about the age of the earth. (He went on to say we may never know “whether the earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras”).
Yet he sounded science-y, if not scientific, when — on Sunday — he argued that “our climate is always changing. And what [scientists] have chosen to do is take a handful of decades of research and — and say that this is now evidence of a longer-term trend that’s directly and almost solely attributable to manmade activity.”
He believes that climate scientists have made a schoolboy error, and that he—Marco “not a scientist, man” Rubio — knows better.
This is particularly funny since Mr. Rubio felt the need to point out last week that President Obama, who does believe in climate change, is “not a meteorologist.” Mr. Rubio may or may not know that there’s a difference between climate science and meteorology; but, setting that aside, he’s evidently aware — when it suits him — that there’s a difference between scientific and political expertise.
Rubio defenders might argue that it doesn’t matter whether or not the senator thinks “human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate” — so long as he’s willing to do something about those dramatic changes.
He’s not.
“I don’t agree with the notion that some are putting out there, including scientists, that somehow, there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate,” he said on Sunday.
Later he added, “I have no problem with taking mitigation activity. What I have a problem with is these changes to our law that somehow politicians say are going to change our weather. That’s absurd.”
Here’s the kicker: Mr. Rubio sits on the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and the Subcommittee on Science and Space.
By: Juliet Lapidos, Taking Note, Editors Blog, The New York Times, May 12, 2014
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